Our conditions in MI were prolly the same as yours, JaG. I had great container plantings right up 'til frost when the material was not too temperature sensitive, but noticed the same thing with my tomatoes & peppers - lots of late fruit that never ripened. I also use a lot of tropical perennials in the floral display containers, and they took a long time to take off this year. We had regular frosts 2 weeks beyond our last frost date, and (garden) soil temperatures remained well below 55* until after the first week of June. Sorry for the cross-talk, HBG. I hope I'm close enough to being on-topic. ;o) I had thought about the possibility of an N deficiency - especially if you were using fresh bark/small pieces, but that wouldn't explain why one plant did well & another didn't. Still, I would put genetics well down on the list of probable causes. Remember this for next year: "By habit now, I literally rip the bottom half of the roots off every plant I use in containers. I then remove a healthy additional portion of the soil they come in before transplanting or potting." For plantings with many different plants (mixed containers) I save the old soil and roots in a pile, and after the plants are situated as I like them in the container, I use it to pack around the remaining roots to secure the newly planted plants. It's usually a much more water retentive soil than what's below it and works well to help keep good amounts of moisture near the roots until the plants are established. It's an example of how being familiar with the rules of how water behaves in containers can allow you to break the rule (of not using dissimilar soils in the same container) and make it work to your advantage. ;o) It may make you shudder to think of it, but I nearly always remove all blooms & buds from the plants I am newly planting. It hastens establishment & allows the plant to build a strong root system quickly, which ends up paying dividends over the long haul. You may have to go bloomless for an extra week or so, but I've always found it to be well worth it in the end. Good luck!! Al

Yeah, this neighborhood is, shall I say, special. Every street has a different tree type. Next street over is a Live Oak, street after that is some sort of cypress...And sadly we do have in our HOA clause to have two trees between the side walk and street and you have to have one tree between the sidewalk and the front of the house. It's another story if you have a corner house...I'm just worried when I buy a new one next week, it will die too now. Not to mention it will be a different size than the one next to it. I'm sure the HOA will complain about that too. Clay soil around here, high winds and the fact that it will be 101 today doesn't help but it is my understanding that they like this kind of weather. They throw houses up so quickly around here and it has been said that the trees are planted too deep. RIP my Chinese Pistache!

Why would you work with someone who claims to be a drywall contractor and then supply your own drywall? That was exactly what the building manager I was required to hire by the construction lender for my first house did. He was forever counting drywall sheets and compound buckets to be sure none went missing. When I began on my own, the drywall contractor supplied materials and I was amazed at the barely two armfuls of waste from a 3,000 sf home. (I do the opposite on masonry to be sure the masons don't skimp on mortar mix or use cheap brick ties and fasteners.)

I really appreciate all your advice - very helpful! We live in St. Louis. On the grading, I wasn't sure I 100% understood, but the unit sits on the side of the house and up a hill, which apparently would cause challenges. The bigger issue for my husband and I was that they were going to need to drill through two concrete walls. Your BTU feedback is interesting - we'll double check on that. We had 5 bids total. One recommended 135K BTU, this one at 110K BTU, and two in the 90-100K BTU range, and one didn't specify. The 135K BTU ran a full test / calculation and was also recommending a 5 ton system -- everyone else recommended 4 ton. All commented that our house isn't your typical ranch house, and while you normally don't count the basement, they felt in our case it is something to consider / factor in. I guess we have a lot of returns, large windows, and 4400 square feet of finished lving space with the walk-out basement. Not sure if that makes a difference or not. We now are also going to get the Infinity furnace and thermostat - thanks for the recos!